BRAZIL: Deforestation in the Brazilian Amazon rose 150 percent in December from the previous year, according to government figures released Friday, a final bleak report for ex-President Jair Bolsonaro in his last month in office.
Satellite monitoring detected 218.4 square kilometers (84.3 square miles) of forest cover destroyed in Brazil’s share of the world’s biggest rainforest last month, according to the national space agency’s DETER surveillance programme.
The area -- nearly four times the size of Manhattan -- was up more than 150 per cent from the 87.2 square kilometers destroyed in December 2021, according to the agency, INPE.
Bolsonaro, who was replaced on January 1 by President Luiz Inacio Lula da Silva, triggered an international outcry during his four years in office for a surge of fires and clear-cutting in the Amazon, a key resource in the race to curb Climate Change. Average annual deforestation in the Brazilian Amazon rose by 75.5 per cent from the previous decade. It was the third-worst December on record for the eight-year-old DETER program, after 2017 and 2015.
Deforestation in 2022 was also at or near record highs during the crucial dry-season months of August, September and October, when clear-cutting and fires often surge because of drier weather.
When President Lula previously led Brazil from 2003 to 2010, a sharp drop in deforestation was observed. He was the one who started the ‘Amazon Fund’ for conserving the forest.
Soon upon taking over the Presidential office, one of the initial decrees passed by Lula was the reinstatement of the Amazon Fund’s governing board.
Norway, one of the biggest donors to the fund on Wednesday announced the revival of the initiative for backing the protection of the forest after Lula took charge. - THE DAILY STAR
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